Volvo's New Sensor Sweet

A Luminar Iris lidar in the 2024 EX90 is engineered to enhance both automated driving and safety.

Consumer skepticism over autonomous vehicles is running rampant, thanks largely to Tesla's broken-record promises to make “Full Self Driving” a reality - along with high-profile accidents, fatalities and a federal investigation of its Autopilot system. Tesla and other automakers also continue a public spat over the best technical or social solutions. And with everyone from General Motors to Mercedes-Benz struggling to leap beyond SAE-defined Level 2 driver-assistance, Volvo has apparently had enough.

With safety as its brand-defining hallmark, the Swedish OEM threw down a gauntlet at the Stockholm unveiling of its electric EX90 SUV: In Volvo's contrarian view, there is no need to pursue hands-free Level 2 systems such as GM's Super Cruise, which still expect drivers to watch the road and retake control at a moment's notice. To Volvo, driving will be either supervised or unsupervised. The space in between is a potentially unsafe limbo, at least for now.